Linda Blair Movies
Although many people assume that The Exorcist (1974) was American actress Linda Blair's film debut, she had actually been working in commercials since age six. Blair was chosen from a field of 500 hopefuls for Exorcist because of her resemblance to the film's star, Ellen Burstyn. To the casual viewer, the film, which dealt with the Devil's possession of an innocent preteen girl, was hardly the sort of fare that any responsible parent would allow their child to appear in. But the Exorcist's director, William Friedkin, was careful to prearrange the special effects (head turning around, bloody body wounds, vomiting green bile) with the least amount of danger or trauma for Blair. From all reports, she handled the assignment like a trouper, though she balked at having her hair messed up for the purposes of the plot. Blair was nominated for an Academy Award for her Exorcist work, but this campaign was scuttled when it was learned that, not only had the girl been extensively doubled by a dummy, but her horrendous "Satan" voice, explicit obscenities and all, had been dubbed by adult actress Mercedes McCambridge. A major celebrity at 15, Blair was able for a while to parlay her Exorcist work into a series of demanding film and TV roles, most of which cast her as a much-abused victim. Her rape scene in the TV movie Born Innocent was so graphic that the network was forced to cut the scene when the film was rerun. In other appearances, Blair played a teen alcoholic, a kidnap victim, a heart-transplant patient on an endangered airliner, and her Exorcist role again in Exorcist II (1977). By this time, Blair was unable to maintain the equilibrium of her career, which degenerated into exploitative crime or girls-in-prison films. More recently, Blair was seen in Repossessed (1990), a ham-handed spoof of the film that made her famous. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1989
- R
In this low-budget thriller, a young man (Gregory Patrick) finds out that his mother (Georgina Spelvin) is really a wealthy recluse. His mother -- jealous, possessive and overbearing -- begins to victimize his wife Evie (Linda Blair). Lovers of movie trivia will note the unusual cast, including Georgina Spelvin of The Devil in Miss Jones fame appearing as Ruth Raymond, and 50's teenage heartthrob Troy Donahue. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
In the wake of the 45-million-dollar gross of the original Airport (1970), Universal was all but required by an act of Congress to produce Airport '75. Charlton Heston heads the all-star cast as Alan Murdock, the former test pilot who must keep a disabled 747 from crashing in flames. The crisis begins when a businessman (Dana Andrews), flying his small private plane, suffers a fatal heart attack and the plane smashes into the cockpit of the 747. Following Murdock's radioed instructions, stewardess Nancy Pryor (Karen Black) takes over the controls. The special-guest passenger lineup includes Helen Reddy as a singing nun (a character wickedly satirized in the 1980 parody Airplane!), Myrna Loy as an alcoholic, and Sid Caesar as a garrulous passenger. While Airport '75 yielded only 25 million dollars at the box office, the franchise continued, spawning Airport '77 a few years later and Airport '79 two years after that. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlton Heston, Karen Black, (more)
David Hasselhoff plays one of three bounty hunters in search of a much-wanted criminal. The reward is astronomical, so it's understandable that the cops want Hasselhoff and company to make themselves scarce. No matter what the law throws in their path, however, the three heroes will not be deterred. Bail Out costars Linda Blair and John Vernon. Though filmed in 1988, Bail Out wasn't released until 1990, upon Hasselhoff's success on television's Baywatch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hasselhoff, Linda Blair, (more)
- 1989
This sequel to 1986's Bedroom Eyes is the mixture as before, with Wings Hauser replacing the first film's star Kenneth Gilman. Once again, stockbroker Hauser begins succumbing to his chronic voyeurism. And also once again, his obsession gets him mixed up in a murder. The film's secondary villain-revealed early on, so we're not spoiling anything-is the vengeful twin sister (Linda Blair) of Hauser's late wife. The real villain is.....but now we would be spoiling things, though veteran filmgoers will be able to spot the guilty party in Reel One. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wings Hauser, Kathy Shower, (more)
- 1974
Born Innocent, originally telecast September 9, 1974, concerns the plight of a teenaged reform-school inmate, played by Linda Blair in her first important post-Exorcist role. Committed for being a habitual runaway, Blair is, for all her surface toughness, unworldly and naïve. All this changes in the reformatory, with Blair rapidly becoming as hard, callous, and irredeemable as her fellow detentionees. Even upon her probationary release, she shows no sign of being "cured" by her incarceration. The film's most notorious scene -- Blair's rape by broom-handle -- was all the more horrifying because there was no pre-show warning issued by the network. So disturbing was the sequence that it was removed from all subsequent network telecasts of Born Innocent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1992
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This fact-based drama follows the flight of a Milwaukee woman wrongly convicted for murdering her husband's ex-wife. Hoping to have a chance for a re-trial she escapes from prison and heads for Canada. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1983
- R
The B-grade genres of sexploitation, blaxploitation, and jailhouse flicks mixed with this grotesque sex- and violence-filled melodrama. Linda Blair stars as Carol Henderson, a naïve and inexperienced teenager who is sentenced to 18 months in a women's prison after accidentally killing a man. Once she arrives, Carol meets sadistic, perverted Warden Bacman (John Vernon), who keeps a hot tub in his office. She also encounters the two top-dog prisoners, Ericka (Sybil Danning) and Duchess (Tamara Dobson), who are at war with each other, the leaders of factions in the facility's simmering racial tensions. Then there are the drug-dealing lesbian rapists and the prostitutes, who answer to the warden's snugly-outfitted assistant, Captain Taylor (Stella Stevens). In the meantime, Taylor's lover is secretly carrying on an affair with Ericka. It's a cauldron of fear and rage, but when the prison's corrupt management goes too far, race considerations are set aside as black and white convicts band together. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, John Vernon, (more)
Adapted from true events, this Australian production concerns a nurse (Linda Blair) who works at a psychiatric hospital. She gradually discovers the grisly truth about a head doctor (Tony Bonner) who performs rather suspect operations on comatose patients. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Tony Bonner, (more)
- 1994
The title of this PG-rated actioner refers to the one-two punch packed by a pair of pre-teen kickboxers. Ten-year-old martial-arts expert Jimmy (Lorne Bernfield) and his equally self-reliant 13-year-old sister Lisa (Crystal Summer) learn their craft at the knee (or foot) of their father, real life kick-boxing champ Dale "Apollo" Cook. The kids' skills come in handy when they set out to rescue a kidnapped scientist. The last named character is played by Linda Blair. Obviously inspired by the Three Ninjas films, Double Blast lives up to its title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Four years after her bout of demonic possession, Regan MacNeil seems at peace as she enjoys a privileged but lonely adolescence. Her actress mother, absent on-location, leaves her in the care of her childhood nanny, Sharon, who feels inextricably bound to her young charge despite the terror she endured during the girl's possession. Regan attends frequent counseling sessions with Dr. Gene Tuskin, an unorthodox psychologist who believes Regan remembers more of her ordeal than she admits. Meanwhile, Father Lamont, a protégé of the priest who died exorcising Regan, is called to investigate the death of his mentor. The Church is divided over the teachings of Father Merrin and wants to gather documentation of his views about demonic existence. Father Lamont himself is conflicted -- haunted by images of a possessed woman he could not save. As he and Dr. Tuskin become convinced that the demon still exhibits a hold on Regan, the priest sojourns to Africa in search of Kokuma, who as a boy was possessed by the same demon and exorcised by Father Merrin. Learning the true name and ancient origins of his supernatural foe, Lamont returns to America to stage a climactic battle for Regan's soul. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Richard Burton, (more)
- 1991
- R
Set in New South Wales, Australia, a local hairdresser falls in love with an enigmatic wanderer and leaves her tiny hometown behind to travel along with him. She is madly in love with him, but eventually comes to question her infatuation when she begins suspecting him of being a killer, a hunch fueled by the corpses that seem to follow them wherever they go. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Jerome Ehlers, (more)
- 1987
- R
Somewhere amid the filmmakers' attempts to disorient the viewers of this film with the old movie-within-a-movie trick, it would seem they also got themselves completely lost in the process. The story opens with a false start, depicting an elderly woman being stalked by a faceless maniac (actually a scene from a retired special-effects artist's demo reel). The "real" story begins as the man's daughter (horror's head-spinning sweetheart Linda Blair) is waylaid by a band of hooligans en route to her dad's mountain cabin. This incurs the wrath of Blair's mutant brother, who lives in a hidden compartment within the cabin. As if that weren't enough, even more monsters from Blair's gnarled family tree show up for a lightning bonus round -- including Tab Hunter as a homicidal plastic surgeon. All is revealed (sort of) as yet another movie-within-a-movie, clear evidence of a writer in way over his head. Cable TV prints actually contained an additional twist ending, apparently for no reason whatsoever. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Tab Hunter, (more)
- 1981
- R
- Add Hell Night to Queue
This plodding, derivative slasher opus -- a surprise box-office hit -- stars Exorcist vet Linda Blair as one of a quartet of sorority and fraternity pledges required to spend the title evening of their initiation inside the spooky Garth Manor. The mansion was the site of a gruesome multiple murder, wherein the owner killed his wife and three of his four deformed children before taking his own life. After the four pledges bed down for the night (mainly with each other, though Blair is called upon for the standard "virginal heroine" role here), mischievous upperclassmen descend into the house, intending to scare them out of their wits...but something even more repulsive than a pack of drunken frat-boys beats them to it. It comes as no surprise that Garth's fourth child -- apparently the most monstrous of the bunch -- is still roaming the premises, and doesn't take kindly to strangers. An early foray onto exploitation turf for director Tom de Simone, this film has a fairly stylish look, though mired by underlit photography and silly performances. Blair is appealing, but her role is sadly underwritten. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, (more)
Actor-turned-filmmaker Griffin Dunne directs this mockumentary about the lives of struggling thespians. The film focuses on Lisa Picard (Laura Kirk), a fledgling actress about to burst on the scene thanks to a bit part in a made-for-TV movie. She is followed around by Dunne as she makes her publicity rounds with her friend Tate Kelley (Nat DeWolf), a writer/actor/militant gay activist. Famous is populated with several direct-to-camera interviews featuring the likes of Penelope Ann Miller, Charles Sheen, and Mira Sorvino. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel London
- 1992
"Get ready for a new generation in misery" was the ad tagline as Married. . .With Children launched its seventh season. In the tradition of the ill-fated "Oliver" on The Brady Bunch, Shane Sweet joins the regular cast in the role of a 5-year-old kid named Seven. Left on the Bundy doorstep by Peg's cousins Zemus (Bobcat Goldthwait) and Ida Mae (Linda Blair), the obnoxious Seven appeals to no one but Peg (Katey Sagal), whose maternal instincts are somewhat belatedly awakened! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A long-lost fright flick with the power to unleash the silver screen's greatest terrors threatens to turn the ghouls loose once again after being re-discovered by a curious young monster fanatic in director David S. Cass' heartfelt tribute to 1950's-era sci-fi and horror films. Ageing film director Dexter Brisbane (George Kennedy) has witnessed firsthand the power that his film "Monsters on the Loose" truly has, and after seeing his celluliod horrors take human form when the film was first released, he hid it in his attic and vowed never to screen it again. When the ailing Dexter hires Shelley Stoker (Linda Blair) to be his personal nurse and Shelley's son Tim (Tim McCallum) makes the discovery of a lifetime, it's only a matter of time before "living-ghost" Revenant, malevolent store-front dummy Manikin, and toothy were-rat Vermin leap from the screen to torment the living once again. Thankfully the bad guys aren't the only ones with the power to make the leap from fantasy to reality, and with a little help from screen sheriff Jay Forrest (Adam Baldwin), young Tim and his friends may be able to ensure that this screening of "Monsters on the Loose" doesn't go from limited run to extended engagement. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Adam Baldwin, (more)
- 1989
- R
After witnessing her boyfriend's killing by gangsters, a woman escapes to Florida with the mob hot on her trail. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair
- 1985
In one of the series' best episodes, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) and Sheriff Tupper (Tom Bosley) are taking a bus trip from Cabot Cove to Portland, Maine, when the vehicle makes a stopover at a roadside inn. Before long, one of the other passengers--a bank robber recently released from prison--turns up murdered. As it happens, practically everyone on the bus except Jessica and Tupper had a powerful motivation...and this may well be one of those rare instances in which the Most Likely Suspect turns out to be the guilty party after all! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Essentially a knock-off of the "Police Academy" series, this slapstick comedy tells the idiotic tale that contains humor to offend just about everyone as it tells the story of a milque-toast cop who moonlights at night as a paper-bag wearing stand-up comic who unfortunately gets mistaken for a paper-bag wearing bank robber. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, Pat Paulsen, (more)
- 1986
- R
In this actioner, young people become a crack team of elite commandos and head for Central America to save the life of a kidnapped American ambassador's daughter who happens to be a friend of theirs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Blair, James Van Patten, (more)
- 1992
The first "Perry Mason" TV movie of the 1992-93 season, The Case of the Heartbroken Bride was the 23rd such production. The wedding of pop star Heather McAdam is disrupted by a drunken interloper. When the party crasher is murdered, Heather is nabbed for the killing. Among the special guest suspects are Ronny Cox, Linda Blair and Diane Baker. Stephen Stills, of Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, has a cameo. As always, Perry Mason is played by Raymond Burr. The Case of the Heartbroken Bride first aired October 30, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this low-budget action adventure, a former Special Operations agents becomes a mysterious crime fighter to avenge the slaughter of his beloved family by the fugitive convicts he sent to prison. He and his family were living under assumed names and believed they were safe. But despite the warnings of his former superior Derek Leigh could not save them. Two detectives show up, but Leigh will not talk to them. It is while looking at his son's simple drawing of a super hero that Leigh decides to don a costume and get the bad guys himself. Wearing a leotard, boots, a mask and painting his face to resemble the title cat, he begins brushing up on martial arts and lifting weights. He then arms himself with assorted darts, throwing stars and arrows all dipped in a special sleeping potion. Once ready, the Jaguar sets off for revenge leaving a trail of dart covered sleeping bodies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maxwell Caulfield, Linda Blair, (more)
